Left Harrisburg at 9.00am and drove west, mainly via the secondary roads, to New Springfield just over the Pennsylvania/Ohio border, to collect Model T tubes and flaps from Snyders Auto Parts.
It was another good day from a weather point of view and very scenic to boot. We will try, where time permits to stay off the beaten track (ie the Interstates) and take in as much of the American countryside as we can. Some of the roads we travelled were good two or three lane highways, while others were almost goat tracks, but to date all have been paved - no gravel roads yet.
Arrived at Snyders which is very much out in the sticks, just before 5.00pm and were given the royal welcome. The fellow behind the counter couldn't do enough for us. My order was packed and ready to go, but when we had finished that formality, he took us behind the scenes and showed us the storeage areas as well as the workshop, where three or four fellows were making seat springs. The finished seats and/or the springs, are sent all around the world by Snyders and that, this chap said was how the business started. Apparently Don Snyders Senior (now deceased), began by making a choke return spring when he couldn't find any for sale in the 60s and the business progressed to more spring making and thence to a wide range of parts for the T and the Model A.
He said they only get about 5-7 walk ins per day but package up around 400 parcels each week for the national and international markets. Good business eh ?
We were then invited to go over to the main house and view the Snyder car collection, which we did.
One shed holds the early vehicles including a range of very early Ts and a Ford N (1906 I think)...
...while the other shed houses the muscle car collection. We tried to count how many vehicles were in the second shed but couldn't - it was around the 60 mark !
The mechanic who was working there was extra friendly and gave us a run down on the collection. Apparently there is a Snyder dynasty and we met Don Snyder II. Don Snyder III was at Hershey with a travelling caravan and took parts to be distributed to those who pre ordered. There is a Don Snyder IV, somewhere in the system, but he may not have reached maturity yet. Hope he likes cars !
It is a family business with about 20 employees and clearly, once you've been given the royal treatment, you do feel somewhat obliged to continue the patronage. A good business technique.
Drove from there to Youngstown where we stayed in a Motel 6 ("We'll leave the light on for you" - thanks Tom Bowdett). We both agreed that the receptionist must have been in her 80s and when we went into Wendy's that night, the counter attendant was also a senior citizen. You don't see that often in Australia - it might have something to do with the lack of guaranteed superannuation here in the States.
A good day - tomorrow we are off to Baltic OH to see my Amish wheelwright and then into Kentucky.
